[Speech of Thomas H. Huxley at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy,
London, May 5, 1883. Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Academy,
said in introducing him: "With science I couple the name under which
we know one of the most fearless, keen and lucid intellects which have
ever in this country grappled with the problems of natural science and
set them solved before us, the name of Professor Huxley [cheers], a
name known far and wide wherever the pregnant science of biology is
studied, and through the vehicle of other tongues besides that strong
and trenchant English with which he is wont to strike his thoughts so
vigorously home."]
SIR FREDERIC LEIGHTON, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESSES, MY LORDS AND
GENTLEMEN:--I beg leave to thank you for the extremely kind and
appreciative manner in which you have received the toast of Science. It
is the more grateful to me to hear that toast proposed in an assembly of
this kind, because I have noticed of late years a great and growing
tendency among those who were once jestingly said to have been born in a
pre-scientific age to look upon science as an invading and aggressive
force, which if it had its own way would oust from the universe all
other pursuits. I think there are many persons who look upon this new
birth of our times as a sort of monster rising out of the sea of modern
thought with the purpose of devouring the Andromeda of art. And now and
then a Perseus, equipped with the shoes of swiftness of the ready
writer, with the cap of invisibility of the editorial article, and it
may be with the Medusa-head of vituperation, shows himself ready to try
conclusions with the scientific dragon. Sir, I hope that Perseus will
think better of it [laughter]; first, for his own sake, because the
creature is hard of head, strong of jaw, and for some time past has
shown a great capacity for going over and through whatever comes in his
way; and secondly, for the sake of justice, for I assure you, of my own
personal knowledge that if left alone, the creature is a very debonair
and gentle monster. [Laughter.] As for the Andromeda of art, he has the
tenderest respect for that lady, and desires nothing more than to see
her happily settled and annually producing a flock of such charming
children as those we see about us. [Cheers.]
But putting parables aside, I am unable to understand how anyone with a
knowledge of mankind can imagine that the growth of science can threaten
the development of art in any of its forms. If I understand the matter
at all, science and art are the obverse and reverse of Nature's medal,
the one expressing the eternal order of things, in terms of feeling, the
other in terms of thought. When men no longer love nor hate; when
suffering causes no pity, and the tale of great deeds ceases to thrill,
when the lily of the field shall seem no longer more beautifully arrayed
than Solomon in all his glory, and the awe has vanished from the
snow-capped peak and deep ravine, then indeed science may have the world
to itself, but it will not be because the monster has devoured art, but
because one side of human nature is dead, and because men have lost the
half of their ancient and present attributes. [Cheers.]